


Table the Argument

by Annie D (scaramouche)



Series: Overhaul [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bottom Tony, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Sappy, Schmoop, Steve POV, Top Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:14:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22771561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scaramouche/pseuds/Annie%20D
Summary: A future timestamp forOverhaul.Steve and Tony have an argument, and what happens after.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Overhaul [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1637140
Comments: 79
Kudos: 874





	Table the Argument

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of people have asked for a future timestamp for [Overhaul](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17846375/chapters/42112973)'s Steve and Tony, just to see what's going on with them. This is for y'all, and especially for Hello My Baby, whose comment got me to actually start writing this thing.

They have an argument.

It’s a work argument, heated and frustrating, though not overwhelmingly so. Voices are raised, doors are slammed, and the handful of Avengers that make up their audience shuffle away awkwardly – Vision and Wanda follow Tony out of the room, while Natasha and Sam pat Steve sympathetically before making their own exit.

It’s not the worst argument Steve’s had with Tony. No low-blows were taken, all points made were strictly Avengers-related, and there was no threat of escalation.

It’s not the most important argument they’ve had, either. Nothing fundamental is at risk, and Steve knows that they’ll find a solution eventually, even if he can’t imagine what that solution could be just yet.

Still, Steve’s left seething, his fingers drained pale where he’d held them in fists. Alone in the conference room, he takes the opportunity to take a deep breath and press his palms flat to the table, letting the tension straighten his arms from wrist to shoulder. He stays there, head slightly bowed and eyes on the dark grain of the conference table, as still as a sniper.

Energy thrums through Steve’s body – in his limbs, his gut, at the back of his skull. He considers his options, and decides to head down to the gym for a shower. He could go to his room to do that but his room is also Tony’s room now, and although chances are high that Tony’s retreated to his workshop, Steve would rather not risk an encounter while his thoughts are still knife-sharp.

So Steve goes down to the gym. He has a shower, changes into the spare clothes he keeps down there for after workouts, and goes out to the balcony to sit by himself.

He thinks back on the argument: what he said, what Tony said, and how it all started. He carefully composes rebuttals to every single one of Tony’s points, and then imagines other angles that Tony might take to rebut those angles, too.

It’s far from the worst argument they’ve had, and far from the most important argument they’ve had. But it’s also the first argument they’ve had since they’d gotten together. A _real_ argument, as opposed to their daily teasing, or the low-stakes back-and-forth that sometimes feels like their permanent state of being.

It was bound to happen eventually. Just because they love each other, that doesn’t mean the rest of their personalities got rewired along with it.

Steve is aware of all of this, just as he’s aware that there will be tougher arguments in the future, and tougher challenges – within and without – that they’ll have to face together. But Steve’s certain that they’ll find a solution in every single one of those future scenarios, once their tempers have cooled down and they can come back to the problem with clear heads. Hell, they have better tools now, on getting to the nitty ‘n gritty of any discussion. Part and parcel of being a good leader is knowing when to push and when to back off.

Steve knows all of this, but he doesn’t stay out on the balcony long. He heads back inside, collects his laptop from his office, and goes up to Tony’s workshop.

“Hey FRIDAY,” Steve says. “Could you please ask Tony if I can come in?”

“ _Door’s open, boss_ ,” FRIDAY replies.

Steve enters the workshop. As expected, he’s interrupted a tinkering binge: Tony’s switched out his shirt and tie for a grease-stained tee, though he’s kept the business slacks on. He’s sitting on a bench, a spread of gear and metal in front of him, though he’s in the motion of removing his gloves when Steve comes in.

“You come to admit that I’m right?” Tony says.

“Ah,” Steve says. “No.”

Tony’s expression flickers for a second, as though he can’t be sure if he’s surprised or not. “Okay.” He hops off the bench and comes in approach, the glint in his eye worsening the already-poor connection between Steve’s brain and mouth. “So you’re up for round two, Steve? ‘Cause I’ve got a good backlog starting with, first of all, actual precedent of when Thor came on Earth and the only reason the—”

“No, Tony, not that,” Steve says quickly. “I don’t want to argue right now.”

“Yeah? Not here to fight, not here to say that I’m correct – which I am.” Tony blinks, as though just registering that Steve’s holding a laptop under one arm. His voice has lost some of its combativeness when he says, “What’s up?”

“Can I just stay here?” Steve gestures at the couch and coffee table by the wall. “You can keep working, I won’t bother you.”

“But we’re in the middle of a fight,” Tony says slowly.

“Ah. Right.” Steve nods quickly. “Of course, right.” He squares his shoulders, perfectly understanding, and makes to leave. He’s turned towards the door and has taken two steps before he remembers – being up front important, too, regardless of their being in a fight or not.

Steve stops and turns back. In doing so, he just catches Tony in the motion of reaching out – Tony’s taken a step forward and has a hand out, as though about to stop Steve from going. Tony turns the motion into a smooth slide of the hand into his pocket, not that he’s fooling anyone.

Tony clears his throat. “What’s really up?”

“It’s… hmm.” It seemed sensible a minute ago, but a great many things seem to be up until Steve has Tony right in front of him. Steve’s first inclination is repeat the obvious, i.e. that they’ll have to make a call about Vision but they should only do it once they’ve had time to digest and hash out their differing viewpoints, but Tony already knows all of this. That isn’t why Steve’s here.

“I don’t know how this works,” Steve says. “It used to be that when we fought, we’d stay out of each other’s way until it’s easier to talk, or we both decided that we’re not going to talk about it at all. Obviously we _are_ going to talk about this one, but until then it’s, I – I don’t want to… Should I spend the night in my old room? Or do we still sleep together but Cold War it? Is that how it goes?”

Tony stares at him. Disbelief and surprise are all over his face, and Steve feels his own face warm up.

“Just tell me what to do,” Steve says, when Tony still hasn’t said anything. “Besides resume the argument, because I don’t want to do that yet. Do I go?”

“You don’t have to go back to your old room,” Tony says. “I mean. I don’t want you to?”

“Okay. I don’t want to, either.” Steve tries not to feel self-conscious under Tony’s scrutiny. It’s a good thing he spoke up, right? “But I should go now?”

“But that’s not what you want,” Tony says slowly. “You want to stay.”

“Yeah.”

“Even though we haven’t settled the thing yet.”

“Of course I respect that you need your space and I’d never—”

“But you still want to be nearby,” Tony says. “Even though we’re…”

Steve swallows. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Tony nods. “You can stay on the couch.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll do my thing and you’ll do yours, and if you wanna get back to battling it out, I’m here.” Tony smiles, a flash-quick pull of one corner of his mouth, before it snaps back and he’s turning to his workbench.

Steve hesitates, though Tony seemed genuine enough. He keeps an eye on Tony as he heads for the couch, just in case Tony has buyer’s remorse, but there’s nothing. Tony’s back in the thick of it, holograms and gear dancing at his fingertips, while a tilt of his head at the ceiling has the workshop’s rock music returning to its usual high volume.

Satisfied, Steve opens up his laptop. It takes time to go through his inbox – emails, memos, reports to read and so on. He’s started doing this more often in the workshop anyway, where the background noise of Tony at work is far more soothing than any playlist he can pull up in his office. In seemingly no time Steve’s made a decent headway into the load, and has some mental space leftover to pull up a new worksheet.

Normally he and Tony talk here and there whenever they do this, but it’s not always necessary. Quiet the workshop may not be, but it’s still its own kind of peaceful.

Being around Tony is comfortable and comforting, even in the aftermath of an unsettled argument. It’s as if Tony pulls the static noise out of Steve’s head by his simple presence, making it easier to think and focus. Steve feels calm, as opposed to merely using an outward calm to bank the churning in his skull.

Steve registers motion when Tony’s already almost at the couch. He sits up, surprised that he’d been taken by surprise, and moves over to give Tony room.

“What’re you doing?” Tony says.

“Work,” Steve says. “Sometimes it feels like it never ends.”

Tony points at the worksheet. “What’s that?”

“Oh, it’s…” Steve eyes Tony warily. “Pros and cons.”

That’s a polite way to put it, but Tony snorts as he reads down the sheet. “You’re tabling our argument – my points and yours in neat little rows. Why don’t you just get FRIDAY to take minutes?”

“It’s not about recording the points. I’m just trying to get my thoughts in order and hopefully understand the greater picture.” Steve keeps his hands on the keyboard, and thus resists the urge to rub the back of his neck anxiously. “When I argue I tend to go with gut instinct and that, uh. That doesn’t always work, does it?”

Tony’s staring at him. Steve swallows past the sudden swell in his throat, and busies himself by typing out another point in the table. When he finishes it, Tony puts his hand over Steve’s, the warm press sending a frisson all the way up Steve’s arm.

“It’s not fun when we fight,” Tony says quietly.

“I don’t disagree.”

“But we’re not breaking up, okay?” Tony shifts in closer, his knee pressing against Steve’s. “This is – this tiny, this is nothing. Okay no, it’s not nothing, because Vision _is_ important, but it’s – we’ll figure this out.”

Steve frowns. “I’m not afraid that you’re going to break up with me.”

“Then what is this?”

“What?” Steve says defensively. “You know I like spending time with you, that doesn’t change just ‘cause we’re in the middle of something. I know that I’m new to this kind of thing, about being with…” He sighs. “I’m just trying to do what you do, with the whole sharing things even when it scares the shit out of you.”

“And this is what you want to share,” Tony says wonderingly. “That you want to… just be around me, even after we fight?”

“Yeah?” Steve says, confused. “I’m not ashamed of that.”

“Oh, no, ‘ashamed’ is totally not the word I was looking for.” Tony leans back, as though whatever answer he seeks is only visible from a half-foot further away from Steve’s face. “Okay, just for the record, this is very new to me, too.”

“Right.”

“Steve,” Tony says patiently, “how many times in my life do you think I’ve just let myself want someone for months without actually doing anything about it? This is me. Look at me. Wanting you was fucking terrifying, and finally kinda-sorta doing something about it even more terrifying, and now actually _being_ with you is… okay, less terrifying, but it’s still its own learning curve, okay? And for the record, I like this.”

“You like what?”

“That you want to be here, and that you told me about it.” Tony grins suddenly. “Makes me feel that I can… no, I _can_.”

“You can what?”

“I want you to hold me,” Tony declares, pompous as anything. “Since we’re having an armistice and all.”

“This is _not_ an armistice. But I will hold you.” Steve puts his laptop on the table and turns on the cushion, his arms open. Tony slides into said arms without preamble, grease stains and all, and flings his legs over Steve’s lap to make himself comfortable.

Steve enjoys it, of course. Holding Tony is a gift – one gift among hundreds, thousands, that Steve may never finishing cataloguing. Tony doesn’t always like to be held like this, but when he does, Steve’s sure to do it the way Tony likes it, i.e. firmly but not too tight, and with a hand braced around Tony’s back.

“Whenever we fought, before,” Tony says, his voice muffled against Steve’s shoulder, “I’d always wonder, would that be the last time? Would that be the last straw, that’d finally make you call it quits? Or make you make _me_ call it quits, though I think you’d be too nice for that, even if you’d never want to be on the same team as me ever again.”

Steve presses a kiss to Tony’s temple. From his point of view it never came close to a last straw, not even with the mess with Ultron, but he knows that Tony’s not saying this now for the sake of reassurance.

“There’s more to lose, now,” Tony continues.

“That’s why we work harder at it,” Steve says.

“Yeah.” Tony turns his head, his nose brushing a line across Steve’s cheek. Tony’s hands find a grip on Steve’s biceps, getting the leverage he needs to rise up and kiss Steve. One kiss, firm and closed-mouth, followed by another that’s softer, heated, deliberate. Steve opens his mouth in response, taking it.

Some seconds later Tony turns in Steve’s arms, and moves one leg around to straddle him properly. His hands cup Steve’s face, while Steve rests his fingers teasingly low on Tony’s hips. They kiss until the flickering heat in Steve’s body rises into a promising simmer, which is very clearly mirrored in Tony’s lazy grinding against Steve’s stomach.

“This isn’t make-up sex,” Tony says against his mouth.

“Of course not,” Steve says. “Disagreement’s still on-going.”

“Does that make this angry sex, then?” Tony laughs when Steve immediately turns his face away, breaking the kiss entirely. “Okay, that’s a no.”

“Can this just be…” Steve shudders at the press of Tony’s mouth against his neck, tongue flicking out against his pulse point. “Can this just be ‘I love you and want to be with you’ sex? Because that’s really what it is.”

Tony’s exhale comes out in an uneven gust against Steve’s neck. That almost sounds like surprise, though it shouldn’t be – not when they’ve been doing this for months, and Steve’s been clear about how he feels as often as is humanly possible without Tony getting twitchy and self-conscious about it. Though clearly Steve needs to keep working on that.

“Okay.” Tony leans over, flailing for the side drawer where he keeps the lube. “Okay, that’s what it is.”

There’s a perfectly serviceable couch, but they fuck on the coffee table, with Steve’s pants shoved down to his knees and Tony’s heels digging notches into the muscles of Steve’s back. There’s still a sheen of newness over everything to do with making love to Tony, which just means that whenever it happens, Steve gets to choose which exciting details to focus on this time.

There’s one detail in particular that has especially not gotten old.

It’s once he’s settled inside Tony, pressed into the incredible warm tightness as deep as he can go. Steve starts moving in a rhythm, where every time he lands, Tony’s partially-softened cock thickens and swells deep pink, hardening more and more each time Steve sinks in to his balls, as though Steve’s feeding pleasure directly into Tony’s body. It’s incredibly beautiful, as is the way Tony gasps with it, his head fallen back and his hands grasping shakily at Steve’s shoulders.

Steve puts a hand around the edge of the table, just above Tony’s head. Leverage literally in hand, Steve moves in earnest, rocking both Tony and table under him with thrusts that are as steady and sure as he can manage. And he _can_ manage; he’s gotten much better at not losing himself to the distractingly sweet clench of Tony’s body.

“Oh my god, oh my fuck,” Tony chants, sweat pooling in his clavicle and his thick muscled thighs straining on either side of Steve’s body. “Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t you dare – _oh_ , oh my god yes right there, Steve, please, please, give it to me, give it to me, oh fuck, fuck fuck—”

Tony tightens up around Steve, which is Steve’s cue to wrap a hand around Tony’s cock. Precome makes pulling at the heated shaft even easier, and then Tony’s coming with a harsh cry, his nails digging wonderfully deep into Steve shoulders. Tony’s still sobbing when Steve gives in, his willpower and steadiness released entirely as he takes and takes from Tony’s generous, giving body.

“Geez, Tony,” Steve hisses, head bowed, as his climax rushes up like a wave.

It’s always a lot, every single time, every single way they do this. Steve’s final, stuttering thrusts seem to get slicker when he spills inside Tony, though that could just as easily be a trick of the mind.

As Tony heaves his breath, his fingers track a tapping dance down Steve’s arms and around his elbows. Tony touches him a lot after sex, Steve’s noticed. Not in the usual cuddly way, which is just their enjoying each other’s physicality, but with a wondering wildness of touch – his fingers move restlessly over every and any part of Steve that he can reach, as though he needs to ground himself with Steve’s presence. Steve loves it, as he loves so much else about him.

Steve slips out of Tony and adjusts his knees on the rug below the coffee table, and then lets his head rest on Tony’s chest. It’s obvious that Steve’s not going anywhere, but Tony’s legs tighten around him anyway.

“I know that we can’t have it both ways,” Tony says, voice just a little breathless, “but that’s thinking in binary. Vision may have been ‘made’, but he _is_ a person, and maybe we just need to expand the definition of what a ‘person’ is—”

“Tomorrow, Tony.” Steve presses a kiss to Tony’s chest, and returns to his resting position. “I promise you that we can start yelling at each other again tomorrow.”

Tony falls silent, and after a beat brings his hands to a rest on the Steve’s neck. He plays with the finer hairs there for a while. “Does there have to be yelling?”

“It’s not compulsory,” Steve says.

“Okay, good.” Tony wraps his arms around Steve’s shoulders and holds him close. “My back’s already gonna be fan _tas_ tically sore tomorrow, wouldn’t want to have compulsory yelling on top of it.”

Steve quickly pulls out of Tony’s arms. “Tony, you need to tell me if you’re—”

“Nope, bad Steve, no arguing until tomorrow,” Tony says with a laugh, though he lets Steve haul both of them up and over to the couch. Which is far more comfortable, and Steve can tuck Tony much more snugly against his chest.

It’s all good.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr post!](https://no-gorms.tumblr.com/post/190875032086/some-people-asked-for-a-future-timestamp-for)
> 
> And many thanks to flyingcatstiel for the lookover.


End file.
